Thursday, February 16, 2006

Were Israelis involved in Abu Ghriab

In light of the new Abu Ghraib photos being released it is worth revisiting some of the stories that came out with the first batch of pictures.

One involved the presence of Israeli citizens and Israeli "consultants" at Abu Ghraib.

From Counterpunch:

With mounting evidence that a shadowy group of former Israeli Defense Force and General Security Service (Shin Bet) Arabic-speaking interrogators were hired by the Pentagon under a classified "carve out" sub-contract to brutally interrogate Iraqi prisoners at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, one only needs to examine the record of abuse of Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners in Israel to understand what Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld meant, when referring to new, yet to be released photos and videos, he said, "if these images are released to the public, obviously its going to make matters worse."

According to a political appointee within the Bush administration and U.S. intelligence sources, the interrogators at Abu Ghraib included a number of Arabic-speaking Israelis who also helped U.S. interrogators develop the "R2I" (Resistance to Interrogation) techniques. Many of the torture methods were developed by the Israelis over many years of interrogating Arab prisoners on the occupied West Bank and in Israel itself.

[...]


Although it is still largely undocumented if any of the contractor named in the report of General Antonio Taguba were associated with the Israeli military or intelligence services, it is noteworthy that one, John Israel, who was identified in the report as being employed by both CACI International of Arlington, Virginia, and Titan, Inc., of San Diego, may not have even been a U.S. citizen. The Taguba report states that Israel did not have a security clearance, a requirement for employment as an interrogator for CACI.

[...]

In an even more bizarre twist, the Philadelphia Daily News identified a former expatriate public relations specialist for the government of South Australia in Adelaide named Steve Stefanowicz as possibly being the same person identified in the Taguba report. In 2000, Stefanowicz, who grew up in the Philadelphia and Allentown areas, left for Australia.


There is also reference to these two individuals in a NYT article posted here

Counter Punch

SFGate

5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

News article on Iran and the "cartoon" controversy.

http://www.dailynorthwestern.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2006/02/14/43f1778c0f7e0

2/16/2006 09:23:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

And no doubt that Mr. "Israel" was being paid in the 3-5K per week range.

2/20/2006 03:00:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Zionists and Torture in Iraq:

[url]http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=20413[/url]

2/25/2006 12:32:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Zionists and Torture in Iraq:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=20413

2/25/2006 12:34:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Janis Karpinski of Abu Ghraib sticking it to Rumsfeld in Germany:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=63252

11/14/2006 02:06:00 PM  

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